Eastern Railroad Discussion > PA Train Derailment

I heard on the 6:00 PM local news (Harrisburg, PA) of a train derailment somewhere along the Susquehanna river where apparently the roadbed washed out due to recent heavy rains. Both locomotive crewmen were trapped in the locomotive for several hours and several of the cars derailed and landed on top of the overturned locomotive. Unfortunately, when I heard the story, they had already given the location and I was not able to get that information. Does anyone else have any more details? Apparently, there was some diesel fuel that leaked into the river.
Jim

See post below, titled "CP washout derailment." That will have all that is known, pretty much.

Here's a link to a local TV station with a couple of stories and photos:

http://www.wnep.com

Here's one of the stories, in case it gets removed:

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By Andy Palumbo
Two Trapped in Derailed Train in Luzerne County
A freight train jumped the track in Luzerne County this morning. Rescue crews worked through the day to free two men trapped in the wreckage. Both were flown to Geisinger Medical Center near Danville this afternoon. Mike Green of Wilkes Barre was treated and released. Ed Mooney of New York is in stable condition at Geisinger.

The derailment happened shortly before 8:00 this morning. The train included 3 engines and 7 cars. The train was headed north on the track in Newport Township. That's near Nanticoke.

The tracks parallel the Susquehanna River, and that's causing some problems. The first challenge for rescue crews was reaching the wreckage. Three engines and seven cars are off the tracks, some of them fell into the Susquehanna River.

There is usually some distance between track and water, but high rain brought the Susquehanna almost to the edge of the rails. From Skycam 16 you could one of the locomotives tossed onto its side. Ground is corn and grain spilled from one of the cars. The train derailed in a remote area along the river. Rescue teams followed the tracks from a road two miles away to get here. Others made it to the accident by boat, traveling downststream from Nanticoke.

Also from Skycam 16, you could see a huge area beneath the tracks apparently washed out from heavy rain Sunday and Monday. You could also see the force of the derailment. A piece of the track bent into a tight curve. The steel should be straight. It now resembles the track in an amusement park ride.

No hazardous materials were involved, but there was still a danger. Five thousand gallons of diesel fuel leaked from the engines. The high and fast moving river quickly took the oil downstream. The oil slick reached for miles only a short time after the train derailed.

The Borough of Danville is already taking precautions. The water treatment plant was shut down this morning for several hours after the diesel spill. Water will be pumped through the system until 11:00 tonight to build up reserves. The pumps at the treatment plant will be shut down until 6:00 tomorrow morning. Borough officials believe the threat of contamination from the diesel spill will be past Danville by that time.

Freed train engineer insists on walking from wreckage


By SUSAN SCHWARTZ

Press Enterprise Writer

NEWPORT TWP. -- After more than seven hours entombed in the wreckage of his derailed train engine, Michael Green insisted on walking up a steep embankment into the arms of his waiting family.

"He said, 'There's no way I'm coming up in one of those baskets,'" said Tom Sadowski, one of the rescuers who dug a tunnel through the wreckage to save engineer Green and conductor Ed Mooney. "Now that's real courage."

Green and Mooney's Canadian Pacific train plunged off a washed-out track Tuesday morning. The lead engine where the two men rode smashed to the bottom of a 30-foot hole, with two more engines and some railcars on top of it.

Soon after rescuers found them, a landslide covered the men's engine, and emergency workers worried that the rising Susquehanna River would wash away still more of the hillside.

Green was treated at Geisinger Medical Center and released. Mooney was still being treated Tuesday night.

The drama began some time before 7:30 a.m., as Green and Mooney guided the 44-car train from Harrisburg toward Binghamton, N.Y.


"They came around the corner and saw there was nothing under the tracks," he said. "They got on the brakes, but a train doesn't stop on a dime."

The crash left two cars partially in the Susquehanna. Two fuel tanks on at least one of the engines ruptured, spilling between 4,000 and 6,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the river and leaving the engine room holding the men awash.

Late train

Canadian Pacific officials called Luzerne County Communications to report a possible derailment sometime between 7 and 7:30 a.m. after the train failed to appear as scheduled at Dupont.

Ptlm. Norman Bodek, Newport Township's emergency management coordinator, said he was one of the first on the scene.

As he inspected the twisted wreckage, he heard someone tapping on the framework.

"I yelled, 'Anybody here?' And they answered, 'Yeah!'" Bodek said.

At first, he couldn't find them, he said. So he picked up a rock and began tapping. Then he followed their answering taps.

Finally, he saw a flashlight one of the men was shining through an open window.

Mooney was complaining of pain in his back and leg, he said. Green told him that he was unhurt, but badly shaken.

Sadowski said that John Bohan, a Canadian Pacific employee and a volunteer with the Nanticoke Fire Co., was also one of the first on scene.


Buried

But then there was a second landslide, and the wet, diesel-soaked soil closed in around the trapped men, said Ray Black, operations officer for the Luzerne County Technical Rescue Team.

Suddenly, Green and Mooney were under 5 to 8 feet of ground, he said.

Firefighters threaded a small camera, only 1 inch wide, through the wreckage so they could find the men.

Lanes Crane helped stabilize some of the wreckage as rescuers got to work, digging back down to the men.

Meanwhile, the river was rising and eroding away the base of the hillside.

There was no danger that the water would envelop the trapped men, Black said. But he worried about another landslide.

Rescuers were roped in to prevent them from falling into the swelling Susquehanna, he said. The Luzerne County sheriff's dive team was called in, just in case someone fell into the water.

Emergency workers dug with their hands and folding shovels to reach the men, said Dan Shaw, coordinator for the rescue team.


The tunnel wove through dirt and metal, he said.

Door blocked

When they reached the engine, they found a piece of the rail barring their way to the door.

"There was no way to get it out without torches," Sadowski said. "And with all that diesel fuel and oil and battery acid down there, there was no way I was going to allow an open fire."

Firefighters passed canisters of compressed air to the trapped men to give them relief from the strong diesel fumes, he said.

Railroad workers cut the rail higher up the hillside to relieve the tension on it, he said, but the rail remained in front of the window.

Sadowski said he had all the rescue workers leave the area while the rail was cut.

Greenetook it well, he said.

"He was joking with us," he said. "When we came back, he said, 'You guys went to McDonald's.'"

Free

Finally, the hole was large enough for the two men to wiggle around the rail that still blocked the window, then squirm through the tunnel to freedom.

Emergency workers carried Mooney out on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance at 2:16 p.m.

But Green insisted on climbing up the steep hill to the railroad tracks by himself about four minutes later.

Black said some of Green's family was waiting there by an ambulance.

"It was especially good to see one walk out, and to see him and his family hugging one another," Black said.

Ambulances whisked both men to Life Flight helicopters waiting two miles away at the West Nanticoke bridge.

The derailment happened about 15 minutes from my home. The location was just south of Nanticoke PA which is about 8 miles south of Wilkes-Barre. The location can't be reached too easily as the only access is a dirt road along the tracks. It could be seen from the opposite shore of the Susquehanna river from Rt.11.
The local news has been covering it quite well and from what I hear both crew members are doing fine.
The tracks run very close to the river along this stretch and with all the rain we've had lately the washout didn't surprise me.